North Korea's party conference may rubberstamp Kim Jong-il's successor: analysis

Kim Jong-il's dictatorial reign in North Korea may approach its end next week
when a key party conference gathers in Pyongyang to elect a new "supreme
leadership body".

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is suspected of suffering a stroke in 2008Photo: REUTERS

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai

7:43AM BST 21 Sep 2010

The last time the North Korean Workers' Party held a party conference, England were World Cup champions in 1966.

Ostensibly the conference will celebrate 65 years of the Workers' Party and elect new provincial and senior leaders to bring about a "fresh revolutionary surge" in the rogue state.

However, analysts believe that 68-year-old Kim Jong-il will use the conference to unveil his third son, 28-year-old Kim Jong-un, as his successor.

The two previous such conferences, in 1958 and 1966, saw the "election" of several senior officials. Kim Jong-il himself was anointed during a party congress in 1980, although he only formally took over after his father's death in 1994.

If Kim does hand over power, he will confirm North Korea as the world's only Marxist state ruled by a hereditary dynasty.

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Delegates from the Workers' Party have been waiting in Pyongyang for two weeks for the conference, since it was postponed at the last minute earlier this month.

North Korea watchers said the delay may have been caused by dissenting factions inside the Workers' Party.

"It is possible that the North Korean elite is far less united than usually assumed, so some factions are seriously unhappy about the likely choice of successor or the expected composition of the new leadership," said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Seoul's Kookmin University, to North Korean Economy Watch, a website.

He added that the delay may also reflect the growing inability of Kim Jong-il to pass reasonable judgement, or perhaps that Kim's health is once again frail. "This view seems to be widespread in South Korean ruling circles," noted Dr Lankov. Kim is said to be suffering from diabetes and a kidney complaint in addition to a stroke he was reported to suffer in 2008.

Little is known about his third son. Kim Jong Un, reportedly schooled in Switzerland, has never been mentioned in state media, and there are no confirmed photos of him as an adult.

The senior Kim has travelled twice to China in recent months, raising speculation that he was seeking approval from Beijing for the handover.

However, earlier this week, former US President Jimmy Carter said the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, had told him that the elevation of the younger Kim was only a "false rumour". "He said that Kim Jong-il made a flat statement that his succession story was a false Western rumour."

Nevertheless, South Korean intelligence believes North Korea has launched a propaganda campaign to promote the younger Kim, and North Korean workers and soldiers have apparently been asked to pledge their allegiance to him.

It is also possible that control of North Korea could be passed to regent, possibly Chang Sung Taek, Kim Jong-il's brother-in-law and the second most powerful man in the country.

If there is a succession, it is unlikely to have much impact on North Korea's political isolation in the near term, given the sway of the country's army. China has advised North Korea to open up and reform its economy, but Pyongyang seems bent on continuing the cycles of aggression and negotiation that have come to characterise its foreign policy.

Although North Korea strongly denies sinking the Cheonan, a South Korean warship, earlier this year, killing 46 sailors, observers note that the rogue state also stepped up its hostile behaviour around the time when Kim Jong-il was promoted, seemingly to confirm the new leader's mettle to his army and public.